Dozens of firefighters were on the scene of a 'major incident' in Bishop's Stortford for hours after a building caught fire in the town centre.

Potter Street, close to the Jackson Square shopping centre, was closed off for traffic and pedestrians for nearly seven hours after the fire broke out at around 9am on Tuesday morning (July 3).

Businesses and residents evacuated their properties after the blaze and were kept outside the cordon while the Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service (HFRS) put out the fire and looked into its causes.

Police and paramedics were also called to the scene of the fire, which is believed to have affected flats above the Cancer Research shop on Potter Street, as well as potentially damaging businesses below after the fire began to spread.

Ian Cox, the owner of virtual reality centre Vire, which is next to Cancer Research and in the building that was on fire, was waiting by the police cordon to check and see if his business had been damaged in the blaze.

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Mr Cox said: "They have said that it was a fire in a flat above the cancer research shop.

"It spread to the adjacent flat and the rest of the building. We don’t know whether that includes us and what the extent of the damage is. Once we are in we will know, we are covered by our insurance though.

"It means letting down a lot of people and we have got a lot of people coming here, it’s also close to the summer holiday.

"Thankfully we don’t open on a Tuesday so none of us were in the building.”

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Police urged the public to stay away from the area n and warned that there were road closures in place around the town centre.

East Herts Chief Inspector Gerry McDonald "urgently" called for people to stay away from the area due to a number of road closures and warned that anyone travelling from Stansted Airport could face disruption to their travel plans.

One man was treated for smoke inhalation at the fire and was taken to the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow for treatment.

A spokeswoman for the East of England Ambulance Service said: "We received a call at 9.15am to reports of a building fire on Potter Street, Bishop’s Stortford.